During the unveiling of Oprah Winfrey's painting at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery last Wednesday, the color purple was essentially "littered" across the room as it was in the painting. From the tables that sat over 340 guests to the dresses, suits, and ties that those people wore, purple was everywhere.
This is no surprise since the hue is a huge part of Oprah's life. In 2023 alone it represented a lot for the TV Icon, as it got featured heavily in this year's iteration of her annual "Favorite Things List" and is the focal point of Oprah's latest produced film "The Color Purple," a musical reboot of the 1985 Steven Spielberg film she originally starred in.
According to Oprah's speech during the ceremony, as reported by the Smithsonian Magazine, purple "has been seminal in [her] life," referencing her role in Spielberg's film, something that she "wanted more than anything else" as it represented the "foundation" of her "future" at the time.
The original film itself was also an adaptation, with the source material being Alice Walker's 1982 novel of the same name, "The Color Purple," and in it are lines that Oprah referenced during her speech, saying, "I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it."
She continued by explaining that, for her, that "is the essence of what God represents: the complications of making the color purple and simplicity of appreciating it."
How Oprah's Portrait Recasted Purple's Historical Symbolism in a New Light
Beyond Oprah's adoration for the color purple lies a contradictory history, with its unpleasant legacy source contrasting its royal symbolism. The hue is believed to have originated from "Tyrian purple," an ancient dye that was exclusively used for adorning the clothes of royalty and was made solely from the mucus that mollusks secreted.
It was first used by the Phoenicians and was later adopted by the Romans when the Caesar lineage declared it to be their official color and restricted its production to only be performed by them.
The process of making "Tyrian purple" is complicated as it involves extracting the needed secretions while the mollusks are still alive before drying them out under the sun for a calculated period. In addition, its production was ridiculously costly as it required upwards of 12,000 mollusks to produce a mere gram of the dye.
In the present day, Oprah has taken this color and has stripped it of its odiousness with the depiction of her recently unveiled portrait, balancing the heavier symbolisms of royalty and power with the lighter themes of poise and peace through Oprah's demeanor and pose.
